The Wyrded Forest: Spells of Earth
By Remi Black
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About this ebook
Elemental Earth is a life-potential power. Can it be wielded to kill?
Wizardry burnt out and memory gone, Desora re-built her life in an isolated corner of the Northern Reaches. She only wields the life-growing power of elemental Earth.
She has nothing of Fire, Air, or Water. No fiery bolts, no whirlwinds, no drowning spheres: nothing for defense or attack.
Shape-shifting wolfen threaten her, able to transform out of Moon-turn.
And strangely gory deaths in the High Meadow mean a mysterious monster prowls, looking for life to consume.
With death menacing, Desora has no protection except her wards.
Wolfen and the eldritch monster kill the defenseless. Can Desora discover new ways to wield Earth before she becomes prey?
For elemental magic and dangerous Dark Fae allies, treacherous shape-shifters, and a twisty sorceress that seeks to defeat anyone associated with wizardry, look no further than The Wyrded Forest.
***
Each novella in the Fae Mark'd World is a complete story, yet the trilogies are interlinked. The Spells of Earth trilogy includes The Wyrded Forest, The Riven Gate, and The Mysts of Sorcery. Readers will experience a greater enjoyment reading the novellas in order.
Read more from Remi Black
Spells of Earth: Spells of Earth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mysts of Sorcery: Spells of Earth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Riven Gate: Spells of Earth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
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The Wyrded Forest - Remi Black
~ 1 ~ Wolfsbane ~
She dreamt of wolfsbane . She dreamt of slavering fangs, green-tinged with sorcery. She dreamt of claws dripping blood and bodies changed into the wolfen. Into the shape-shifting wyre.
As wizard, possessed of the magic that powered wrought spells, Desora would have ignored the dream. Reduced to elemental power, she dared not ignore it.
On waking, Desora set about her normal day for Midsummer. Preserved fruit to store in her root cellar, smoked meat to remove from the rock stack, balms and salves to make from dried herbs, those tasks consumed the morning and well into the afternoon. She didn’t rush. The best time to collect wolfsbane was the light of the Horn Moon, the sliver of silver that rode high in the starry night. To dream of wolfsbane at gathering time, that also appeared to be a sign. Tasks done, she began preparing for the journey. The closest patch of wolfsbane that she’d found grew thickly at the forested base of the Claws of Weorth, the abrupt uplift of the steep northern mountains.
Early afternoon, Desora readied her scrip and her pack before going to work in the pottager area of her garden. The beans wanted to run themselves up and over to the wattle fence that surrounded her hut and its gardens. She had to tease them out of their tangle and onto a trellis, slow work in the heat of the day. Hidden behind the plants, she heard someone shake the twig gate of her fence. She peeked through the leaves.
Visitors came rarely this far into the forest between the Lowlands and the Wilding. The only person who deliberately sought Desora’s company was Granny Riding, healer for the village of Mulgrum. Her visitors numbered less than a hand over a year. Her hut was far off the main trail that ventured into the Wilding, and only foresters and hunters dared there. They treated her with respect, for she had the undeserved name of healer and used it.
Six years ago, Granny Riding had led her to this hut. It served her well with the isolation she craved. To have a visitor, come so rarely, was a sign as significant as the dream of wolfsbane with the Horn Moon rising in the sky.
Ho the hut!
a man shouted.
Desora straightened from behind the bushy beans and picked up her trug, partly filled with the day’s harvest. She hadn’t heard his approach. She did not know when the birds, her usual sentinels, had fallen quiet. She stepped onto the path along the row of trellised beans. Greetings, good sir.
The young man flashed a grin. He was healthy and handsome. Dark hair fell across his brow and curled at his shoulders. His eyes were bright and clear as the sky overhead. She recognized him as a forester. Woodwork had built his muscles and trimmed his frame. No doubt the women panted after him. With his shock of brown hair and sparkling eyes, Desora found him impressive but not alluring.
Lady Desora, greetings.
He shook her gate. Well met.
She came onto the path between her gardens. You are from Mulgrum.
I am, indeed.
She wondered at his purpose here. Has Granny Riding a need?
for the granny was wise woman, healer and dame of magic, not great enough for wizardry but more than enough to heal most ills that came to remote villages and farms. Desora kept the wise woman supplied with curatives and wound-heal.
A frown crossed his face at her mention of the healer, but it left as quickly as it had come. Not a need she mentioned.
That frown—did he not like Granny Riding? Desora would visit her on a market day, to stock her needs while Granny’s apprentice ran her errands into the village. Most of Mulgrum had likely forgotten her existence.
My apologies,
she said now. I do not remember your name.
Merketh.
He gave another hard shake to her twig gate, action she found troubling.
For she’d warded the wattle fence and its gate, warded against magical creatures with the Earth power that was left to her after her magic had burnt out. Six years renewing her wards at every moon change had given them the strength of stone against the magical. Gobbers had tested it, a rock troll once, but not an ogre. And now a wyre tried to cross her wards ... and failed.
For all his mundane appearance, he must be magical.
The Merketh that I have heard of is a woodcutter on the Bermarck side of Mulgrum.
You know me,
and he flashed that grin of good humor.
I have heard of you,
she said slowly, watching her words with caution. You are far from your work,
for the Wilding that backed her hut was on the opposite side of the valley from the border with Bermarck, a sept of Faeron. The magical could not work near that border, for Fae sentinels would come to discover any power that neared their border.
Magical, for he could not cross her wards. Magical now but not before, for he had worked a border of Faeron. Magical and no longer mundane meant changed.
Transformed.
She knew now the reason that she’d dreamed of wolfsbane.
When had he received the Bite that transformed him from man to wyre? The three Lady Moons and the three Dragon Moons were the only time she knew that wyre could change the mundane. Wyvern Moon was ten days past. Maiden Moon was more than twice as many days ahead.
How long would Merketh have attempted to disguise what he was?
Where was the rest of his pack?
Merketh placed both hands on the gate. He leaned his weight backwards. The gate ungiving, he leaned his weight into it. Lady, will you grant me entrance?
My wards guard against the magical.
His charming smile died. He leaned farther over the gate. Desora, Desora, Desora.
How long would he remain, unable to cross her wards, unable to tempt her to him or to release the magical barrier? You cannot enchant me with that name, Merketh. Desora is not my true name. When were you changed?
He growled. Had it been a Moon-Turn, he would have changed, ripped her to shreds, and feasted on her blood. You should fear me,
he snarled. Fear what I now am.
I do, for the man you were is lost in the wyre you are.
I am better now. Stronger.
Controlled by the Moons,
she retorted.
Not so,
he countered.
She didn’t understand what he meant. Instead, she knelt and reached to the vegetables in the garden trug. She palmed the onions and potatoes intended for tomorrow’s stew, splaying her fingers to touch the carrots. Then she drew the Earth out of them. Merketh, Merketh, Merketh,
she chanted, using his attempted spell on him. The true-name spell should work on a man born as a mundane villager. Go away, far from here, miles and miles from here. Run until the wind rasps in your throat, and drink from the river flowing out of Bermarck.
The power burst out of the vegetables, withering them under her hands as the enchantment drank their life force. Desora flung the power into her wards. It surged along the wattle fence to the twig gate and into Merketh’s hands, still gripping the gate.
The enchantment shuddered into him. She saw it wrack his body. When his eyes unfocused, she knew the spell gripped him.
He released the gate and fell back. Without looking at her, he turned and walked away. In three strides his pace increased. At the edge of the clearing that fronted her hut, he began running.
He would not stop until he reached the river. Desora no longer wielded magic, but elemental Earth ran strongly, and she’d had six years to practice with that power.
She stared after Merketh, long after he’d disappeared into the forest.
Here this isolated valley of the Northern Reaches, stopped by the Claws of Weorth, was long and narrow. The lower vale had a string of lakes down its center, but the upper water courses were shallow and easily forded. Running at a steady pace for a couple of hours—which a hale wyre could maintain for twice as long as a hale man—Merketh would leave this forest and cross the valley to reach the Faer River out of Bermarck. The enchantment would hold him there until sunset.
And then what?
Desora did not want to fight him. Fighting meant killing. No longer wizard, only a wielder of elemental power, she could kill wyre as wizardry could not. She hadn’t killed, though, since she’d left Iscleft Citadel.
Were she not to kill him, he would seek to kill her.
A mundane might give up the battle, having lost, having faced the humiliation of an enchantment that controlled him.
A wyre would not.
Her use of enchantment would motivate him even more. He’d expected a wizard, and wizards had not magic against the wyre. He encountered a wielder of elemental power.
Would he bring his pack into this battle between them?
Two, three wyre she might successfully fight. Not a pack of thirteen.
What was a pack doing this far into Elsmere? How had the pack gotten past the narrow passage guarded by Iscleft Citadel?
She worried over those questions as she added a longer knife to the sheath on the belt slung about her hips, then she traded her garden clogs for sturdy walking boots. Reaching the patch of wolfsbane would take the same time as Merketh’s run to the river. She would harvest the entire patch as soon as the Horn Moon cleared the horizon. Leaves and flowers, but not the roots.
With wyre come to the valley, every household of Mulgrum would